DESCRIPTION (adapted from the Abstract): Our goal is to provide students, faculty and staff of the USC School of Medicine (SOM) who train and work off-campus in rural primary health care centers the same access to learning and data resources available to those who are on campus. Those resources include the Internet, library databases, medical and health care information, lecture notes, computer simulations and instruction, continuing medical education, E-mail, file attachments and file transfer protocol. To do this we will link remote rural primary health care centers to the SOM?s local area computer network (LAN) creating a wide area network, link medical student dormitories located in those same rural communities to the SOM?s LAN, and link unserved medical student areas at Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital to the SOM?s LAN. Linking will be accomplished by creating a Virtual Private Network (VPN) between a server and a PC at each remote site and the SOM?s LAN using analog telephone lines and local Internet Service Providers. Software will be configured on dedicated LAN servers and on remote PCS to create VPN connections. With those connections established, remotely located students and faculty can use SOM library and computer resources much like they would when they are on-campus. Remote users will be authenticated and all data transmitted over the VPN will be encrypted to discourage information theft and unauthorized use by others.